In a base-station installation, it is useful to be able to predict failures before they occur, since this allows replacements or repairs to be carried out at scheduled maintenance visits or, in the case of an antenna-embedded radio product, at times when the site is down anyway (perhaps because another sharer of the site needs to undertake an antenna swap, for example). It is often of interest for the network operator to be able to control the time at which the maintenance is performed. It is expected that this would result in improved reliability of service for the user and a lower cost of ownership for the network operator.
A base transceiver station, or base-station, in general has the following units: A transceiver (TRX), a power amplifier (PA), a combiner, a duplexer, an antenna, an alarm extension system, a control function and a base band receiver unit (BBxx). The alarm extension system connects working status alarms of various units in the base-station and extends them to operations and maintenance (O&M) monitoring stations. Most of the units of the base-station have a self-diagnostic ability that allows the units to issue diagnostic indicators, such as alarms to the alarm extension system. The alarm extension system may report the diagnostic indicators (alarms) received from the unit to a central office, or the alarm extension system may store the diagnostic indicators (alarms) to be presented to a maintenance technician during a maintenance intervention. The personnel of the central office or the maintenance technician may then evaluate the reported diagnostic indicators (alarms) and decide on which maintenance and/or repair actions need to be performed. In some cases, the base-station itself processes the diagnostic indicators (alarms) and provides an indication as to whether a repair or replacement is needed, thereby ‘de-skilling’ the role of the central office personnel and also that of the maintenance technician.